


Hermione and Draco take a walk

by cafeyprince



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Comedy, Dialogue Heavy, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy Friendship, M/M, Not Epilogue Compliant, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27354670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cafeyprince/pseuds/cafeyprince
Summary: Draco can’t remember how, why, or when he and Harry started dating and — somehow — this becomes Hermione’s problem.---A short, silly fic about Draco and Hermione being best friends and navigating trauma between young working adult relationship drama. Mentions of the wizarding war, but it’s mostly these two having comfortable, if bitchy, conversations (with some Drarry happening in the background).
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy
Comments: 9
Kudos: 103





	Hermione and Draco take a walk

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: There's some mentions of sex but it's nothing explicit! The word "bitch" features heavily, but as shorthand for "friend who I love and cherish deeply"

Draco barreled into Hermione’s office. It looked as though he had walked very calmly down the length of the corridor before running the last few meters at full speed.

“Hermione, I have a question for you. Of utmost urgency. Of course,” he said between suppressed pants.

Hermione gave him an appraising look over the papers she had been filing. Draco certainly looked alarmed. But it was a level of manic energy he reserved for non-essential, Harry-related dramatics. She let him stew a bit as she set her papers aside. When she looked up, he was sitting at the very edge of the chair across her desk, fidgeting slightly.

“What seems to be —” she began,

“When did Harry and I start dating?” Draco burst out.

  
Bizarrely enough, Draco was one of Hermione’s closest friends. It had been surprisingly easy to find common ground after he had stopped apologizing to her every single time they saw each other. So it was with all the love in her heart that she said, “Draco, what the fuck.”

“Look, I know what you’re thinking,” he said, raising his hands.

“At 4 in the afternoon? On a Wednesday? In the middle of the winter fundraiser season? Please, enlighten me,” Hermione said, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

  
Draco had the grace to look slightly ashamed.

“I wouldn’t have gone to you if I hadn’t exhausted every other lead I had, Hermione,” he lied, quite spectacularly. Both of them knew that he’d rather die before asking anyone else about this.

“But…?”

“But I cannot, for the life of me, remember when or how or _why_ we started seeing each other and this is _hugely_ upsetting, I’m sure you understand —”

“Not really,” Hermione said wryly.

“You don’t see why this is upsetting?” Draco said, a note of hysterics creeping into his voice.

“No,” Hermione said, “I just… don’t understand how you couldn’t already know? These details? Look, we know you’re a bit _lacking_ in the self-awareness arena —”

“Uncalled for, at the moment, but fair,” Draco interrupted

“— But surely, _surely_ even you must have noticed the point when you both got your heads out of your respective sphincters,” Hermione said, ignoring Draco completely.

“My, aren’t we snippy today,” Draco said admiringly, “You know, and I’ve been telling you this, but you _need_ to channel this kind of energy more often —”

“Draco, look,” Hermione said, “Can’t this wait? The Midwinter ball is coming up and I don’t have anyone from the committee who can entertain the stakeholders at the most posh wizarding social event I have ever seen on paper.”

“Oh is that all? I can handle that for you, no problem,” Draco said, waving a hand dismissively, “It’s just “encouraging” their continued support in the coming year? Oh, Lord Waxworth,” he said, sliding into the best impression of baby Draco that Hermione had seen in years, “how is the Lady Waxworth? Wonderful, wonderful. We were ever so pleased when we heard of your endorsement at the Gentleman’s Society for Humane Wizarding Sport. Awfully progressive of you. You know, I’ve been telling the chaps down at the Club how your board tenure has been a breath of fresh air — and so on and so forth. Easy.”

“How on earth did you capitalize the word ‘club’?” Hermione said faintly.

  
She realized that she had sagged back into her chair from sheer relief. It was such an obvious solution. She would kick herself for not considering it in the first place. But who could blame her? Draco had spent the last decade ruthlessly cutting the upper crust from the sandwich of his person. These days, you could only catch the posh if you really squinted.

“Same way I figured that Old Waxy might be one of your newest donors,” Draco said airily, “It’s the sort of thing that old coot would do, to throw off the scent from his truly appalling labor practices. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  
He wasn’t quite meeting her gaze now, almost as though he was surprised by his own performance. Right, Hermione remembered, an entire decade of apologies.

“Yes, but are you sure? I know you don’t do that sort of thing anymore,” she said gently.

“ _Please_ , I would be happy to represent the Ministry of Magic’s Subcommittee of the Welfare and Development of Magical Beings at the Midwinter Ball,” he said

  
Hermione beamed. Even Ron couldn’t remember the entire name of her taskforce, on a good day. Draco might be given to histrionics but when you got down to it, he wasn’t a bad sort. Speaking of which… 

She looked around the empty office.

“And that’s cleared my afternoon,” she said, as though they both couldn’t see the stack of memos in her inbox. “Let me just send Jones a note about taking you on as an external consultant for the ball season —”

“Granger, you’re not paying me to talk to some wealthy relics!” Draco said in alarm, “Those are public funds! That’s a war crime somewhere, surely —”

“‘On a voluntary basis,” Hermione continued, “Then we’re going to the pub before anyone notices I’m gone.”

“Oh thank _fuck_ ,” Draco says, throwing on his coat.

\---

They found themselves skipping over the crowded pub for a nice walk towards Southbank. The weather was uncommonly cooperative for September. The wind nipped at their coats but the afternoon sun took the edge off the chill. 

  
Normally Draco would have something to say about the tourist traps around Jubilee Park, but he was being uncharacteristically quiet. Now that she had gotten a good look at him, Hermione could see that Draco was attempting to rearrange his thoughts into a neat package before he handed them to her once more. He had obviously barged into her office almost immediately after realizing that… what was it, he didn’t know when he and Harry started dating? 

  
Come to think of it, Hermione had no idea how to answer that question. They had been completely obsessed with each other since they were kids, that’s for sure. There was the war, of course, but none of them really counted the war in things like this. After that though… Hermione had to admit that it became much fuzzier. Harry and Draco had definitely become friends at some point after the trial, which made complete sense after the initial shock of it. Then, a couple of years after that, Draco dropped the word “boyfriend” to Hermione in the Cafe Incident of 2004. Again, it made complete and utter sense — after the coffee had been mopped up (Hermione’s) and the bespoke blazer carefully spelled dry (Draco’s).

“Right?” Draco said suddenly, making Hermione jump, “Oh, sorry. I mean, I’ve just been trying to puzzle it out. You were the first person I told, way back then, but there was definitely stuff _before_ that.”

“ _Obviously_ ,” said Hermione.

“Obviously,” Draco agreed, “but you could put a gum to my head and I still wouldn’t be able to tell you when it actually started. It’s driving me up the wall.”

“Gun,” corrected Hermione, taking a small spiral notebook and a ballpoint pen from her bag, “And ugh, you’re right, I can’t stand not knowing things that we ought to. Let’s try to break down the sequence of events as we know it. The trial?”

  
Draco eyed the muggle implements with interest.

“Is that one of the erasable sorts?” he asked, reaching out for it. Hermione gently rapped his hand with it.

“No and _focus_ ,” she said, “When did you and Harry become friends? Or when did you start talking to each other, for that matter? I know you definitely didn’t talk before the trial.” 

“No,” Draco looks at his nails before grinning, “but we snogged in the corridor right before the session was called.”

  
Hermione dropped her pen. It bounced once, twice, and slipped between the metal railing. They heard a couple more taps and a distant splash as it presumably fell into the Thames. 

“You’re not serious,” Hermione said faintly “That was… that was nearly a decade ago.”

“I wasn’t,” Draco said.

  
Hermione sputtered for a moment, then rounded on him.

“You absolute wanker!” she yelled, “You made me drop my pen!”

“It was actually right after the trial. They let Mother and Father have a moment before sending him off to Azkaban. I went to the bathroom to have a good cry and well,” Draco broke off, suddenly extremely interested in his nails, “Always with the emotional breakthroughs in public restrooms, that’s Mr. Harry James Potter for you.”

“ _Bitch, this is exactly what you did at the cafe,_ ” is what Hermione meant to say. Instead, what came out was a strangled sort of noise. She shut her mouth and counted to ten.

“That must have been a very difficult moment for you,” she began.

“Very tense. Very fraught with feelings,” Draco said, completely deadpan.

“Why are you doing this to me, in particular?” Hermione said, looking back at the spot where she had accidentally contributed to urban waterway pollution.

“Because you’re my friend and I’m going to explode if I don’t talk about this specific thing,” he replied, matter-of-factly.

“What, that you snogged my best friend after he testified for you and your mum in front of the most powerful wizarding authority in the country?” said Hermione.

  
She was furious to find that, once again — after the initial shock — it made sense. She ought to have seen it, plain as day, but she could never quite navigate the logic that Draco and Harry seemed to follow. Draco seemed to be waiting for her to catch up mentally.

“So I take it, you weren’t an item at that point?” Hermione said slowly, taking out another pen from her bag. Never let it be said that she couldn’t keep her head in the game even under times of extreme duress.

“This is why I love you, Hermione,” Draco said fondly, “and no, definitely not. There was this unspoken understanding that it was a, how do you say, one time thing? But we started flying after that. He’d visit me and Mother at Wiltshire —”

“Sorry, at the _Manor_?” Hermione said, managing to keep her grip on the pen this time.

“Yes, the big bad Manor. Actually, no, yes, it was pretty horrible. Mother and I had camp out in my nursery. You know, the only suite where _Tommo and the lads_ hadn’t committed crimes against humankind,” Draco paused, did a wandless Scourgify, and leaned against the railing, “Sometimes Harry would help us clean. Or he’d have tea with Mother. But mostly, we just flew.”

  
The immediate aftermath of the war was a haze in Hermione’s mind, which she didn’t mind much. Those weren’t memories she wanted in stark relief. Tracking down her parents, those horrible, silent days in the Burrow… worst of all were the times that Harry would disappear without warning. Every single time, she and Ron were convinced that they’d never see him again, but he’d always turn up a couple days later, no worse for wear. They had more than one screaming row about it, the three of them. In the end, Hermione had frog-marched them all to one of the rare wizarding therapists in London. It hadn’t been easy getting a clinic to take in 3 new clients at that time, but there was something to be said about being the Boy Who Lived (Again) and his friends. It was hardly compensation for being expected to save the wizarding world at seventeen, but she’ll take what she can get.  
  


Harry never did tell them what he had been doing on those sudden trips. He probably hasn’t even told Ron, Hermione realized with a start. It was a strange thought, Harry keeping secrets from the two of them.   
  


Hermione wondered if Draco had ever gone to therapy. She’d probably have to ask in a less, dicey conversation.

  
Draco still had his elbows popped on the railing and was looking down into the water. With a small splash, a pen zipped out of the water and into his open palm. He shook it out with another silent Scourgify and handed it back to Hermione. She pocketed it.

“Do you still want to talk about how you started dating, or?” Hermione let it hang in the air.

  
Draco didn’t answer for a while, still staring at the river splashing against the concrete bank. Organ music from the nearby carousel floated towards them on the breeze. 

“Yes,” he said finally.

“Well,” Hermione tapped the non-Thames pen on the notebook spine, “You’ll have to tell me what happened after you’d go flying. Did you do anything, er, in the vein of dating while Harry was visiting the Manor?” 

“Ew no,” Draco said, “Not the most romantic backdrop, all that death.”

“Debatable,” Hermione muttered as she took notes.

“Excuse me?” Draco said.

“Harry regularly visited you at your country manor, had tea with your mum, and took you on beautiful flights across the countryside,” Hermione said, “As a… friend?”

“... yes?” Draco said, “Isn’t that what friends do?”

“I mean, I suppose, but —”

  
Draco's eyes widened comically.

“I need a coffee,” Draco proclaimed suddenly before taking off towards the bridge.

“Why are you so affected by the idea that you _might_ have already been dating back then?” Hermione said, jogging to keep up with Draco’s strides.

“Because!” Draco said, wringing his hands, “that means I didn’t know! And that means I went about this all wrong!”

“If it’s any consolation,” Hermione said dryly, “Harry probably didn’t get the memo either.”

“That makes it worse,” Draco groaned.

“In fact,” Hermione said, cracking up, “Oh Merlin, Harry might not even know you’re dating now. Oh don’t mind me, of course he does, you’ve moved in together and… everything…” she trailed off in horror and looked Draco in the eye. 

  
Or tried to anyway. He had a good foot on her to begin with and he had started doing a ridiculous, sloping sprint-walk.

“Oh poo, the food market’s closed on weekdays. We’ll have to do that cafe at the National Theatre,” Draco said frantically, from a couple of meters ahead

“Draco, is Harry aware that you’re not just roommates who, I _presume,_ sometimes have sex?” Hermione replied as she closes the gap.

“It’s not technically sex if — oh, they’ve a new food truck up but oh, those gimmicks. How gauche,” Draco said in desperation.

“DRACO, WHAT IS ‘NOT TECHNICALLY SEX’ SUPPOSED TO MEAN?” Hermione yelled, startling a nearby family of tourists.

“I never quite know what to make of this style of construction,” said Draco, flapping a hand at the facade of the National Theatre as he sprint-walked towards it, “I used to think it was awful, but it _does_ make such an impact.”

“Have you ever talked to him about this? About you two? How could he possibly be unaware of your situation? You’ve been living together for four years now!” now Hermione was doing the hand flapping. 

  
They sobered up as they entered the cafe and approached the counter. They ordered and sat in silence, slightly detached from reality, while waiting for their orders to arrive.

“What does he tell you two about me? Thank you,” Draco said, as a waiter placed his coffee on the table

“You shouldn’t be talking to me; you should be talking to him. Oh, cheers," Hermione accepted her order from the waiter, “4 years. No, _9 years._ You colossal idiots.”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried,” Draco clears his throat, “all he does is look at me politely, like he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. You know, that way he does when you know you’re not drilling any further behind that thick skull of his. Then we stop talking after that because more interesting things are happening.”

“No but,” Hermione said, fixedly ignoring that last bit, “what do you say? Are you asking him directly or do you circumnavigate as usual?”

“Excuse _you_ ,” Draco said archly.

“Sorry, did I say circumnavigate? I meant _blither,_ ” Hermione replied.

“I’ll have you know —”

“That _what_? Oh, look at that tacky food truck! And this big building! Oolala!”

“If I ever actually say ‘oolala’, strike me dead where I stand,” Draco hissed, “and yes, fine, I do… circumnavigate.”

“You can’t expect Harry to read between lines _and_ keep up with five different trains of thought if you want him to respond properly,” Hermione said reproachfully, “You know this!”

“What if he says that he doesn’t want this to be anything?” mumbled Draco, “What if he finally tells me to bugger off, after 9 years of putting up with me?”

“ _Oh, he’s been putting up with you for much longer than that_ ,” Hermione definitely doesn't say. Instead, she takes a deep breath and pats him on the hand.

“Do you know what he says about you?” she said.

“What,” Draco said flatly.

“There’s an awful lot of “my, er, um, er, Draco said” followed by whatever nugget of wisdom you have for us that day,” Hermione began. 

“Huh,” Draco leans back in his chair.

“There’s also a lot of trailing off while mentioning your name, then never getting back to why your name was mentioned in the first place."

“Hm,” he replied.

“About 5 odd years of this, mind you.”

“Uh...huh"

“So you’ll forgive me for assuming that you had come to some sort of agreement with each other at _some point_ in the last half decade,” she finished dryly.

“Hey no, that could be any number of things —” he trailed off at Hermione’s thunderous expression, “There really is a chance, isn’t there? A decent chance?”

  
Hermione resisted the urge to hurl him bodily into the Thames, as dear friends do when one of them is making a fool of himself. But Draco looked well and truly worried. She patted his hand reassuringly.

“I’d bet my left tit,” she said, completely deadpan.

  
That startled a surprised laugh out of him.

“I like you so much better, now that you’re a proper bitch,” Draco said, “None of that, ‘I _secretly_ blackmail reporters, but I’m _such_ a goody two shoes’ nonsense. Just a full on, proper bitch.”

“Thank you,” Hermione replied graciously.

“Have you ever considered going for Minister? That’s the highest level of bitch there is,” Draco said, stirring what was left of his cortado.

  
Hermione shuddered.

“Merlin, no,” she said, “The amount of ass-kissing I’d need to do to get there? I’d never get anything done. But speaking of which,” she rummaged in her bag and pulled out an envelope, “Here’s the dossier for the Solstice Ball. You already know the later chapters, but you’ll need a background on the committee’s donor objectives for next year.”

  
Draco grinned as he took the envelope. 

“Oh, Hermione,” he said sarcastically, “however could I repay you for your sage advice.”

\---

Draco swept into Hermione’s office at 11 am the next Monday. It would have been awful timing if Jones hadn't immediately approved his volunteer permit for the ball and hadn't cleared up a truly ludicrous amount of time in Hermione’s diary. She beamed at Draco.

“Draco! What are you doing in a Ministry office? Without an appointment? Again?” she asked warmly.

“Oh please,” he said, sitting on a non-papered space on her desk, “everyone’s delighted to have me.”

  
On the desks around her, Moura and Walsh gave him polite nods before returning to their work. Thankfully, Jones’ office door was closed. Bizarrely, Draco seemed to be reveling in the lack of reaction.

“I’m not going to argue with that, but what’s going on?” Hermione asked, “it’s a bit early for a non-emergency.”

  
Draco wordlessly thrust his hand an inch from her face. She pulled it back, ready to be annoyed at whatever this was supposed to be, when she saw the ring on his finger.

  
A gear clicked into place in her head.

  
“You got engaged yesterday??” she shrieked

“Married. How did you know it was yesterday?” he tilted his head curiously.

“Because Harry was over before that and he didn’t seem like — Married???” Hermione’s hands flew to her forehead “Draco, Draco… _Draco_ … I thought you were going to talk.”

“We did talk. And then we got married because it was getting ridiculous.”

  
It certainly was. Walsh was smiling down at his desk, still pretending that he wasn’t eavesdropping. Moura was openly gawping at the ring on Draco’s finger, knowing full well that it meant. Harry Potter, the saviour of the last wizarding war, had eloped with Hermione’s odd friend who, incidentally, happened to be a Death Eater during said war.

  
No big deal, none at all.

“Molly’s going to skin you two alive for not having a family wedding,” Hermione managed finally.

“Yes, that occurred to us,” Draco said, looking shifty all of a sudden, “I mean, if it’s a "til death" thing, we may as well go at the hands of the mother-in-law, right?”

“Congratulations, Malfoy,” Walsh said, still not looking up from his papers.

“Yeah, congrats,” Moura said, pulling herself together.

“Thank you both,” Draco said, “at least some people here have manners.”

“Obviously, I’m happy for you two,” Hermione said, flapping her hand, “But why can’t you do things like this without dropping them on the rest of us like a ton of bricks? Ease into things, like normal people do?”

  
In spite of her tone, she felt tears start pricking in her eyes. It was always like this with Draco, wasn’t it? One emotional whiplash to the next. But it wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Draco looked genuinely alarmed.

“Oh please don’t start. Not in public. You’ll get me going too,” but he was also looking distinctly watery. 

  
The moment was ruined somewhat by Harry Potter skidding through the office door.

“Hermione! Herm — oh come on!" he said, when he noticed Draco, “I wanted to tell her!”

“Too slow,” Draco said, turning away to wipe his face.

“It’s not a competition! Oh, hey,” Harry looked down at Hermione, who had launched at him with a bleary hug, “Er, there, there. Don’t cry.”

“I’m just so pleased for you idiots,” she said, muffled slightly.

“Er, thanks?” Harry said, with a grin that Hermione could hear.

  
As he patted her hair uncertainly, Hermione vaguely registered just how ridiculous they all were. How farcical this entire week had been. She sniffled a bit and detached herself from Harry.

“Does this mean that I can go a couple of days without either of you bothering me at work?" she said, smiling uncontrollably.

“Sorry, we’ll get out —” Harry floundered.

“Not on your life,” Draco said, sweeping both himself and Harry out of the room.  
  


\---

**Author's Note:**

> Hermione and Draco have a lot in common in the books. I imagine they’d have such a nice, bitchy relationship after they’ve had time to heal from being, uh, child soldiers. 
> 
> Draco and Harry’s relationship, of course, is at the core of my personality. That’s a whole other TED talk for another time.
> 
> Unbeta-ed because I wrote this in a fit of madness over 6 hours. Hope you had as much fun as I had!


End file.
